Another of my favourite rubber Outer Space Men from 1968 was Colossus Rex, the green lizard man, pictured above, bottom far right. You can read more about him on its inventor's, Mel Birnkrant's, own website. Man, do I wish I still had my Outer Space Men! Their final destination, the bottom of our refuse bin in the early Seventies!
Similar lizard men have adorned magazine covers for years. The Creature from the Black Lagoon is probably the most famous. The gill man featured in all his glory on the cover of the Dell belated movie tie-in in December 1963.
Similarly reptilian was the very scary fire demon in the classic British Fifties monster flick, Night of the Demon [Curse of the Demon in the US]. The demon spectacularly took centre stage on the cover of Famous Monsters of Filmland issue 38, April 1964.
Whilst over at Eerie this sub-aquatic horror ushered in issue 3 in 1966. This creature was very reminiscent of Colossus Rex.
Rex got to taste the limelight one more time on the cover of this 1973 The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction anthology. The pewter pin resting on the book is incidental. The book is avialable on Ebay com.
A more modern Rex has to be Fungus the Bogeyman from 1977, whom I used to read to my young Daughter Kim in the Eighties. Oh! woe is me! as Fungus would say!
The Eighties brought us the scariest Rex of all, Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex and Bill's favourite! Rawhead is just too heinous to show here! Grrrrrr!
Any more Rex's out there readers?
Rex the Wonder Dog . . . ?
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